Lingpupa wrote:I could be wrong, of course, but I would be surprised if cigarette smoking was widespread in 19th century Tibet. Snuff, perhaps, again, I don't know, but cigarettes?

Do you think that one is true or just someone re-telling the story of Dudjom Lingpa and grafting it on to Gendun Chopel?

If anything it strikes me as more likely (I must stress again that this is not much more than an educated hunch) that the story might have been first attached to a figure of Gendun Chopel's time and then grafted back to Dudjom Lingpa.

People did not smoke cigarettes in Tibet during the 19th century. But they did smoke these tiny little pipes.

Adamantine wrote:Do you really think it would have been hard for him to procure cigarettes?

Snuff and pipe smoking was common enough. But rolled cigarettes? Possible but not too likely in regular supply in Golog.

But perhaps they came in with the brick tea trade.

To be fair I am merely recounting the story from my own faultymemory and may have filled in some things in error. If I've misrepresentedanything I apologize. I don't believe the word cigarette was probably used, so it's quite possible they were smoking out of pipes. The important thing is that they were smoking the tobacco. . . Not necessarily how they were smoking it. Clearly, the dialogue is a gross guess-timationbased on how it was passed on in memory in Tibetan, retold in English, and then remembered later by me in my ownEnglish. So take this as a general account, I believe the essence of the exchange is still there.

Contentment is the ultimate wealth;Detachment is the final happiness. ~Sri Saraha

Not only does smoking poison you, but it takes over your prana vayu, because what you inhale is disgusting smoke. This attacks you in the most vital way. It is good that these warning come in termas, because if analyzed, it can be seen that cigarettes really are as detrimental as warned in termas. Unfortunately (or perhaps foruntately, in a way) my experience confirms this. They caused a lot of detriment in my life.

So my stance on cigarettes is not that they are bad for your health but they are literally evil and poisonous.

The prana attacked, the heart attacked, the seat of wisdom attacked, the channels attacked-- of course they are cursed!

When the five poisons increase in your system through these evil little things (as stated in terma) can your heart truly be focused on practice first and foremost, even if it is still "prominent" in your life? Will your pride and worldliness increase? Will you be caught in the "game of life"?

So this has been my epxerience: the poisons slowly and gradually increase whereby you do not know it and can do nothing about it. You do not realize how much they increase. It is like hair growing, slowly each day. Your organs and heart and channels deteriate likewise. Your compassion and joy fade (how can you be truly joyous when the prana comes along with this? You still practice, but slowly, your heart is more and more concerned with praise and blame and so forth, with attachment and aversion, and so forth. Your practice is flushed down the toilet, even if you are doing it everyday.

Now I am smoke free, I realize how much it hurt my practice when I was smoking. I honestly did not realize it at the time. They are a great evil.Kevin

wisdom wrote:Granted there are people on this thread talking about running from smoke, or being attacked by demons for smoking a cigarette, and so forth.

I'm not quite sure why this seems like such an outlandish thing, at least for Tibetan Buddhists on this forum. Dharma Protectors are not just archetypes or superstitions. From a Vajrayana perspective, there really are protectors out there whose role is to protect us. They are external beings (as much as any of us are external to one another...while in essence there is no subject/object, from a relative perspective, there are individual beings) who were once gods or spirits, were subjugated by Guru Rinpoche (and occasionally by other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas), and were bound under oath to protect the Dharma and its' practitioners. One of the primary reasons that tobacco smoke is so "evil" is because these protectors no longer have the ability to protect you. If a practitioner smokes, the protectors basically abandon them. That's not to say that if somebody takes a drag once that they're eternally doomed to be protector-less, but it's certainly a dangerous act in regard to the Dharmapalas, and not something you want to be doing if you want to have them on your side...and you do.I think the rift in understanding here lies in the misunderstanding of exactly what protectors are. They are not simply aspects of our own enlightened mind, like a Sambhogakaya Yidam. They are real, tangible beings that we need to maintain our samaya with.

Oh I fully agree in the objective existence of the protectors, and I believe that Virgo had the experience he says he had. I have enough experience with the objective spirit world to know of its power. I guess my question is why does tobacco have this quality, and not any other number of vices? I can smoke pot constantly by this theory, and still be protected, but one cigarette will exempt me from protection. Or if I am a perfect practitioner with perfect conduct, but walk into a bar where people are smoking, all the protectors will abandon me, and I will be left unprotected and unable to be helped? What about walking down the street, am I unprotected every time I walk past a smoker? Or at a bus stop? I guess my question is why do the protectors hate smoke this much, why are they unable to stand its presence?

yeah it feels hopeless living in a big very polluted city :/

Disdaining the lower and unable to grasp the higher,talking of emptiness, such a person will neglect cause and effect,mouthing on about the view while in a state of self-deception.It would be better to concentrate on the gradual path.

wisdom wrote:Oh I fully agree in the objective existence of the protectors, and I believe that Virgo had the experience he says he had. I have enough experience with the objective spirit world to know of its power. I guess my question is why does tobacco have this quality, and not any other number of vices? I can smoke pot constantly by this theory, and still be protected, but one cigarette will exempt me from protection. Or if I am a perfect practitioner with perfect conduct, but walk into a bar where people are smoking, all the protectors will abandon me, and I will be left unprotected and unable to be helped? What about walking down the street, am I unprotected every time I walk past a smoker? Or at a bus stop? I guess my question is why do the protectors hate smoke this much, why are they unable to stand its presence?

Worldly protectors, the once that react to tobacco smoke, don't really live in cities anyway. Too many humans, too much pollution.

wisdom wrote:Oh I fully agree in the objective existence of the protectors, and I believe that Virgo had the experience he says he had. I have enough experience with the objective spirit world to know of its power. I guess my question is why does tobacco have this quality, and not any other number of vices? I can smoke pot constantly by this theory, and still be protected, but one cigarette will exempt me from protection. Or if I am a perfect practitioner with perfect conduct, but walk into a bar where people are smoking, all the protectors will abandon me, and I will be left unprotected and unable to be helped? What about walking down the street, am I unprotected every time I walk past a smoker? Or at a bus stop? I guess my question is why do the protectors hate smoke this much, why are they unable to stand its presence?

Worldly protectors, the once that react to tobacco smoke, don't really live in cities anyway. Too many humans, too much pollution.

Wisdom protectors don't care.

N

Yes, but no one can protect you from your karma. And when the five poisons increase... you do bad things.

I would like to explain further about some of my recent experience with smoking. First of all, at the conclusion of this post, I will cite evidence from terma that shows that smoking increases the five poisons. I smoked for I don't know maybe 8 months or so. Not very long. During this time period the five poisons definitely slowly increased in my mind-stream. Now, some people may say, "Kevin, take personal responsibility, any negative actions you do are yours and yours alone, do not blame them on a substance". I fully agree. Any negative tendencies I developed are mine and mine alone. I do not blame them on a substance. Nevertheless, I do know that this habit did increase the five poisons in me, and therefore my negative side came out. It happens slowly, day by day, so you do not notice it build up. It's hard to see the change in yourself. When the nicotine was completely out of my system, my mind frame was completely different and the poisons lessened to the degree they were before I took up smoking.

I believe that they also block the channels, and cause disturbances in the humours.

The evil is smoking.

Now take a look at these termas. This is from an Arogter site, not my favorite, but I believe this was a collection done by Dudjom Rinpoche, and it seems all the quotations are from older non Aro termas, so I believe it is all authentic.

wisdom wrote:Granted there are people on this thread talking about running from smoke, or being attacked by demons for smoking a cigarette, and so forth.

I'm not quite sure why this seems like such an outlandish thing, at least for Tibetan Buddhists on this forum. Dharma Protectors are not just archetypes or superstitions. From a Vajrayana perspective, there really are protectors out there whose role is to protect us. They are external beings (as much as any of us are external to one another...while in essence there is no subject/object, from a relative perspective, there are individual beings) who were once gods or spirits, were subjugated by Guru Rinpoche (and occasionally by other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas), and were bound under oath to protect the Dharma and its' practitioners. One of the primary reasons that tobacco smoke is so "evil" is because these protectors no longer have the ability to protect you. If a practitioner smokes, the protectors basically abandon them. That's not to say that if somebody takes a drag once that they're eternally doomed to be protector-less, but it's certainly a dangerous act in regard to the Dharmapalas, and not something you want to be doing if you want to have them on your side...and you do.I think the rift in understanding here lies in the misunderstanding of exactly what protectors are. They are not simply aspects of our own enlightened mind, like a Sambhogakaya Yidam. They are real, tangible beings that we need to maintain our samaya with.

Oh I fully agree in the objective existence of the protectors, and I believe that Virgo had the experience he says he had. I have enough experience with the objective spirit world to know of its power. I guess my question is why does tobacco have this quality, and not any other number of vices? I can smoke pot constantly by this theory, and still be protected, but one cigarette will exempt me from protection. Or if I am a perfect practitioner with perfect conduct, but walk into a bar where people are smoking, all the protectors will abandon me, and I will be left unprotected and unable to be helped? What about walking down the street, am I unprotected every time I walk past a smoker? Or at a bus stop? I guess my question is why do the protectors hate smoke this much, why are they unable to stand its presence?

perhaps it could be understood that when we smoke we are deliberately harming our aggregates thus breaking one of the samayas thus distancing ourselves from the Wisdom Protectors (although they don't mind the smoke itself).

probably it would include any activity that is harmful to our body like too much junk food or overdose of alcohol etc. ?

Disdaining the lower and unable to grasp the higher,talking of emptiness, such a person will neglect cause and effect,mouthing on about the view while in a state of self-deception.It would be better to concentrate on the gradual path.

Yeah, i thought id share. As i found it interesting. Just the other side of the coin, you know Smoking any plant matter is no good for you, as it produces tar and carbon monoxide.But still smoking different medicinal herbs is a part of Ayurveda.Why do you think? The harmful properties are negligible and outweighed by the positive properties. If used In moderation and as the doctor prescribed.

I find it shocking that in this modern age people view tobacco as a demonic plant or something. For those who have this view you do realize that what makes cigarets so harmful is all the chemicals the major tobacco companies put in their products. With out the chemicals pure tobacco is just as addictive as coffee.

In South America Shamans use natural Amazonian tobacco smoke to ward off both internal and external negative entities. Tobacco is an essential part of Amazonian and Andean Shamanism.

Now I'm not advocating going out and smoking a pack of Newports and expecting to get somewhere but pure chemical free tobacco does have some benefits. And from what I've been reading on this forum it sounds like Ayuredic cigs do as well. Anyways just my two cents on the issue.

You might call it fundamentalism...but it's hard to ignore the "rules" if you are a practitioner who has damtzig with a Lama: most teachers from Tibet have consistently decried it's harmfulness for over 150 years, even back in the days when people's only form of smoking them was whole rolled leaves stuffed in the end of a pipe the way they would in China.

The fact of the matter is, most Lamas of the Nyingma school (I'm not sure what others would say--I would assume it's similar but I don't know) who comment on it in the literature are profoundly against both drinking liquor and smoking and would say things like "unless you can transform deadly aconite into nectar the second it touches your throat, you have no business drinking alcohol." that one's paraphrased from Khenpo Ngawang/Patrul Rinpoche.

I think Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje, who intaroduced Patrul Rinpoche to the nature of his mind, smoked. Chogyam Thrungpa smoked whilst translating his terma into English smoked, according to the account I read. Some Nyingma lamas and tertons do smoke.

I smoked for many years as a beginning practitioner, eventually I stopped because I couldn't stand smelling bad (smoke) while having a private interview with Rinpoche and being very close to him. he never said anything about it. I am very happy I stopped, it was a bad addiction.

/magnus

"To reject practice by saying, 'it is conceptual!' is the path of fools. A tendency of the inexperienced and something to be avoided."- Longchenpa

michaelb wrote:I think Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje, who intaroduced Patrul Rinpoche to the nature of his mind, smoked. Chogyam Thrungpa smoked whilst translating his terma into English smoked, according to the account I read. Some Nyingma lamas and tertons do smoke.

Oh yeah! Of course! But they are examples, I believe, of what the quote I had "unless you are able to transform deadly aconite into nectar as soon as it touches your throat"...they're accomplished. They can do whatever they want as a display. For me, I'd love to walk around in public naked drinking bourbon out of a capala and smoking huge, fat Doobies all the time with a Khatvanga over one shoulder... but until I can levitate away from the cops and introduce people to the nature of the mind the second they catch sight of me... I'd better steer clear

Zen Enigma wrote:With out the chemicals pure tobacco is just as addictive as coffee.

The chemicals *may* make it worse, I haven't read the research on that so I don't know. But without them tobacco is still highly addictive, and the smoke is full of carcinogens. If that's your poison (it was mine for thirty years) then good luck to you, but it would be folly to pretend that "natural" tobacco is not a dangerous poison.

And to anyone who wants to take Trungpa's actual behaviour (rather than his words) as a model, I can only again say: Good luck to you sir!